Man Waving Shotgun Is Killed by Police

By RICHARD D. LYONS

Published: July 19, 1990

An apparently deranged man waving a sawed-off shotgun was trailed by a police team along several streets in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn yesterday, then shot to death by the officers while they tried to capture him as several dozen witnesses looked on in horror.

The police said the officers shot the man because he aimed his gun at the head of a policewoman.

The drama was played out for about 10 minutes shortly after 5 P.M., when many residents were arriving home from work.

The shooting occurred as at least 20 officers hemmed in the man in front of a garage at 186 Eighth Street, between Third and Fourth Avenues. When the shots were fired, residents screamed and ducked for cover as the man died under a fusillade of bullets.

Late last night, the police identified the dead man as a neighborhood resident, Andrew Gonzalez, 34 years old, of 528 Ninth Street, several blocks from the scene of the shooting. He was the superintendent of the building.

The police said they were called to the scene at 5:10 and first saw Mr. Gonzalez at Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue, alternately holding the gun at his side and putting it in his mouth. As he walked east, more officers arrived, keeping bystanders to the side.

A videotape made by an Eighth Street resident, who asked that his name not be used, showed dozens of officers lined up behind cars, their guns aimed at Mr. Gonzalez on the sidewalk. The videotape, taken with a zoom lens from a second-floor window about half a block away, showed Mr. Gonzalez facing the officers, gesturing with his left hand and holding the gun with his right hand, though it is not clear in what position.

As the camera moved back toward the officers, a shot was heard and when the camera came back to Mr. Gonzalez, his body jerked back. He then staggered back under a hail of about a dozen bullets and collapsed on his side on the garage wall.

The tape did not show the position of Mr. Gonzalez's gun when the first shot was fired. But several people who said they witnessed the shooting said they did not actually see him point the weapon at the officers.

Judy Lebron of 254 Sixth Street said the gunman at times had the gun in his mouth, and at other times had it at his side, ''but never pointed it at anyone.''

Miss Lebron said that when the gunman reached the front of the garage he stopped. ''All of them were aiming at him,'' she said of the police. ''All he did was pull the gun out of his mouth and make like a fast move to put it at his side. That's when one cop took a shot and they all shot at him.''

Catherine Devine, 28, who with her son was visiting her mother at 338 Eighth Street, said, ''I heard him say 'I want to die' several times.''

Ms. Devine said she saw Mr. Gonzalez emerge from a basement near Sixth Avenue, at 334 Eighth Street, ''with a shotgun pointing in his mouth.''

Ms. Devine said the gunman was being watched by several police officers from a distance.

''I jumped on top of my son and lay down,'' she added. Ms. Devine said Mr. Gonzalez left several suitcases on the basement stairs, which she later pointed out to the police.

David Yepez, a 21-year-old student at Brooklyn College who said he saw the shooting, said ''at no time did he point the gun at the cops.''

''He went down in a cloud of smoke,'' Mr. Yepez said. Eileen Garcia, who lives at 526 Ninth Street, which is next door to the building where Mr. Gonzales lived, said ''he only moved in a few months ago and we really didn't know much about him.'' She said he worked as the superintendent ''and mostly kept to himself.''

Photo: A video taken by a Brooklyn resident shows an apparently deranged man with a shotgun, left, moments before he was shot to death yesterday afternoon by police officers, behind a pole and cars at right, in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn.